1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to image compression, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for dynamically controlling pixel size in image compression.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Image compression is frequently used to reduce data size of a digital image, to facilitate other image process, image storage or image transport. In the image transport, for example, pixel size of the compressed image should not exceed system bandwidth with which the compressed image can be reliably transported; otherwise the buffer of the encoder/transmitter or the decoder/receiver would result in overflow, a situation that system designers keenly want to prevent from occurring.
It is recognized that no single compression/coding scheme is universally suitable for all kinds of image and systems. For the worse, a compression/coding scheme will usually uncontrollably expand instead of reducing the size of an image of certain types.
For the foregoing reasons, a need has arisen to propose a method and apparatus that could controllably and dynamically govern the image compression/coding, to prevent the occurrence of buffer overflow and catastrophic data expanding.